Monthly Archives: September 2011

Most Americans are willing to sacrifice more than you might guess to help our country through this budget and debt crisis and to protect their grandchildren’s future. Here are a few government “services” I am willing to give up for my country:

I would be willing to forgo the millions of dollars’ worth of nutrition programs the USDA provides so that public schools can offer a better selection of broccoli to my children. It would be difficult for me, as a parent, to have to give some thought to what meals my children eat and whether they are becoming obese from too many soft drinks, but for the good of the nation, I’d be willing to parent my own children – at least until we get out of this economic mess.

I could learn to live without the EPA studies of the climate dangers caused by cow flatulence and maybe even that agency’s regulation of my own breathing. Realizing that my breath and my love of beef may lead to yet another half-inch rise in the sea level over the next century, perhaps we could worry about this in another decade or two when the economic outlook is rosier.

If absolutely necessary, I could manage without the Department of Education funding thousands of school district administrators across the nation. I know the importance of every district having coordinators for special education, autism, behavioral problems, social engineering, political correctness, and curriculum “updating,” but because of the temporary economic downturn, I would be willing to let teachers and parents decide on their own how to run schools and implement important social objectives for now.

I could try to go on without the Department of Energy giving massive grants to universities in every region to write research reports on the benefits of alternative energy and the dangers of fossil fuels. Because there is no one left who does not already understand the evil of our modern consumptive life, maybe we could get by with our own efforts to modernize our lives, based on what is available, affordable, and desirable to us. Perhaps we could rely, for now, on companies that provide energy, rather than bureaucrats and professors who study it.

I could run my farm, if necessary, without the Labor Department dictating details of the relationship between me and my workers. Because the workers all know where there are better jobs that pay more, they are pretty good at negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions with me. If I don’t pay enough, they tend to go away, even without the Labor Department telling me exactly what that wage level is. Therefore, this is a “service” I could sacrifice for the good of my country.

I would be willing to give up the Interior Department’s work in managing endangered species for a while. Because the department’s most routine activity in this regard is adding new species to the endangered list and then issuing “opinions” that warn people against activity in the regions where the species live, there is little activity that actually results in recovery of anything endangered. Wildlife seems entirely unaware of all this activity, anyway; therefore, maybe we could all just stop killing endangered species for now and try to make such judgment calls without the aid of the Interior Department’s regulatory structure.

Finally, I could – if pushed – figure out how to pay for the things I buy without the benefit of the pennies and dollar bills that government continues to mint and print by the billions each year. Recognizing that pennies cost more than 1.5 cents to produce and that dollar bills last a few months while dollar coins last for years, I know these are “services” that cost millions each year unnecessarily. I guess I could take time to look at my change long enough to distinguish between a dollar and a quarter, if it would help the country out of this mess.

I know there are many more examples, and I speak for millions of my countrymen in offering to live with less of such services. After all, we Americans are public spirited, not selfish.